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Asbos only answer

SIMON JENKINS believes that it is an offence against civil liberties that people should have antisocial behaviour orders (Asbos), underpinned by prison, served on them for such offences as drunkenness, prostitution and being “neighbours from hell”(Comment, May 29). Such problems may be rare enough where he lives but they are ruining the lives of many of my poorer constituents.

Of course he is right that we need to rebuild the bonds of civil society, which this government has played a major role in weakening. In a country where illegitimacy is nearing 50%, and many children have no male role models, this will take many years. Incredibly, Jenkins cites our continental neighbours as an example; yet they operate without habeus corpus. Weeks and months of arrest without charges involve a much greater limitation on civil liberties than Asbos.

There used to be a traditional remedy under British law until the Police